Contraband sugar packets, calling a border guard a “redneck,” menstruating on a prison uniform, kissing another detainee, identifying as gay, requesting an ankle brace—these are just some of the reasons Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have placed detained immigrants in solitary confinement.

ICE and Department of Homeland Security documents obtained by The Atlantic provide one of the clearest snapshots to date of what immigrant-rights advocates say is the agency’s excessive, arbitrary, and punitive use of this form of isolation

The whistleblower provided information that led to the government collecting over $44.4 million in taxes, penalties, and interest in the case, according to a statement from Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto. Partner Stephen M. Kohn is the chair of the National Whistleblower Center.

The New Yorker: Whistleblower drops the other shoe in Epstein / MIT Media Lab scandal

Dozens of pages of e-mails and other documents obtained by The New Yorker reveal that, although (convicted sex offender Jeffery) Epstein was listed as “disqualified” in M.I.T.’s official donor database, the Media Lab continued to accept gifts from him, consulted him about the use of the funds, and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university.

A little over half the companies in the Nifty 50 have got a cumulative 4,552 whistleblower complaints for FY19 — 30 per cent higher than the previous year. The period saw governance practices come under scrutiny at companies such as ICICI Bank, Sun Pharmaceuticals and IL&FS in the wake of such complaints. In FY18, 21 Nifty companies received 3,514 complaints, up 11 per cent from the previous year… Experts said the growth reflects a healthy trend. Historically, company insiders have chosen to look the other way when they become aware of wrongdoing but that’s changing, said Mukul Shrivastava, partner, forensic and integrity services, EY. The Companies Act 2013 forced organisations to establish a whistleblower mechanism and employees are being trained on how to go about making complaints, he said.

Mallinckrodt ARD LLC will pay the federal government $15 million to resolve whistleblower allegations that the United Kingdom-based company wined and dined physicians to induce them to write prescriptions for the company’s pricey H.P. Acthar Gel, the Department of Justice said.

]]>https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/09/articles/uncategorized/mistreated-detainees-tax-cheats-kickbacks-and-more-whistleblower-news-of-the-week/feed/0Follow National Whistleblower Day event on Twitter #NWD19https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/07/articles/uncategorized/follow-national-whistleblower-day-event-on-twitter-nwd19/
https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/07/articles/uncategorized/follow-national-whistleblower-day-event-on-twitter-nwd19/#respondTue, 30 Jul 2019 13:27:19 +0000https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/?p=12419National Whistleblower Day is over, but the tweets from NWC continue.

As strange as it might sound, whistleblowers in Australia have reason to rejoice – so long as they are in the private sector.

Thanks to new laws that came into effect this month, private-sector whistleblowers have a range of new protections. This includes, in certain prescribed circumstances, the prospect of being compensated if they experience adverse outcomes after taking their concerns to the the media.

The timing is ironic, given last month Australia’s federal police launched raids on journalists and media outlets who received and published disclosures from public-sector whistleblowers. If identified and prosecuted, those whistleblowers could face lengthy prison sentences.

In fact, private-sector whistleblowers now have, for the first time, greater protection than their public-sector counterparts.

What the new laws do

The catalyst for the new laws was a parliamentary inquiry into whistleblower protection established in November 2016. The inquiry’s final report, published in September 2017, made a total of 35 recommendations. Though 19 were rejected by the federal government, the outcome is still a vast improvement on the previous provisions.

For the first time, federal legislation now defines, in broad terms, the following.

Who qualifies as a whistleblower. The list of those protected for making disclosures goes beyond company officers and employees. It includes suppliers, employees of suppliers, and relatives and dependants of officers, employees and suppliers.

What is a disclosable matter. Whistleblower protection isn’t just for disclosing illegal conduct. It also covers “misconduct” or an “improper state of affairs” (not including concerns about personal work-related grievances).

Who to make a disclosure to. To qualify for protection, whistleblowers no longer need to raise their concern through a “formal” whistleblowing channel. They can go to any officer or senior manager in a company, or to an auditor, or to regulators. Disclosures to journalists and members of parliament also qualify for protection in certain prescribed circumstances.

What constitutes detriment. Detrimental outcomes for whistleblowing are not constrained to dismissal or demotion. They include discrimination, harassment or intimidation, harm or injury (including psychological), and damage to property, financial position or reputation.

Above all, the legislation empowers the courts to order payment of compensation to whistleblowers who experience detriment. To avoid any liability, organisations must demonstrate they have taken steps to protect whistleblowers.

Promoting protection

The prevailing view is that whistleblowing is a sure path to career suicide. The stories that loom large in the public consciousness are those of whistleblowers who, despite acting in the best interests of the organisations that employ them, are ostracised and abandoned.

Whistleblowing, to be sure, is an arduous undertaking that will always take some type of toll. But this prevailing narrative of significant adverse consequences is misleading.

I say this for two reasons.

The first is personal. In 2004, I was one of the whistleblowers in a major governance failure at the National Australia Bank. It led to four colleagues being jailed and senior executives resigning. Despite this, I went on to spend a further 12 years at the bank. The bank endorsed a book I subsequently wrote about the origins of ethical failure. Chairman Ken Henry even wrote the foreword.

The second, more importantly, is the evidence. The world-leading Whistling While They Work Research Project at Griffith University surveyed close to 18,000 people working in public and private sector organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Of the 4,382 respondents who reported wrongdoing in their organisations, 21% said they were treated well by both management and colleagues, compared to less than 13% who said they were treated badly.

There is no denying whistleblowers sometimes pay a significant price, but these results show positive outcomes are possible.

Beyond ‘tick-the-box’ compliance

The new whistleblowing laws aim to increase those positive outcomes and provide avenues for compensation when whistleblowers aren’t treated well.

The challenge for organisations now is making this happen.

A first step is to put in place a whistleblower policy. The legislation requires that all publicly listed and large proprietary companies have one. Among other things, the policy must detail:

the internal channels through which whistleblowers can make disclosures

how thorough, independent investigations will be conducted

how the interests of the whistleblower will be protected.

As important as formal whistleblowing policies and programs are, however, they are not sufficient. Any “tick-the-box” compliance approach will inevitably fail to promote positive outcomes for whistleblowers without an ethical culture.

Organisations must work hard to create environments that support those who raise concerns, and where leaders listen and take action. This will reduce potential liabilities for organisations and help shift the prevailing narrative surrounding whistleblowing.

We are now in a new era for private sector whistleblowers. Of course, the true litmus test will be when the laws are tested in the courts. But my hope is not just that the courts richly (and deservedly) compensate whistleblowers who suffer detriment. I hope the legislation is a catalyst for organisations to create environments that support whistleblowers, recognising the tremendous value they bring to any workplace.

]]>https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/07/articles/uncategorized/its-a-new-era-for-australias-whistleblowers-in-the-private-sector/feed/0Tonight, 6/28: “Whistleblower” on CBS features military procurement whistleblower Bunny Greenhousehttps://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/06/articles/uncategorized/cbs-features-military-procurement-whistleblower-bunny-greenhouse/
https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/06/articles/uncategorized/cbs-features-military-procurement-whistleblower-bunny-greenhouse/#respondFri, 28 Jun 2019 09:30:44 +0000https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/?p=12248Do not underestimate Army Corp of Engineers whistleblower Bunny Greenhouse. A stern, elegant woman who favors sprawling floral lapel pins, she could be mistaken for the schoolteacher she once was. And, don’t think that time and retirement have tempered Greenhouse. The woman who objected to no-bid contracts for Iraq War contractors still has something to say.

Tonight, Friday June 28, the CBS show “Whistleblowers” includes a segment on her story as part of the last episode of the season. The program also includes an interview with Michael D. Kohn, a board member of the National Whistleblower Center and one of Greenhouse’s lawyers.

Bunny Greenhouse

“I never considered myself as a whistleblower,” she tells host Alex Ferrer. “I was doing the work I had taken the oath of office to do. But I still became the skunk in the park.”

Bunnatine Greenhouse was in charge of procurement for the Army Corps of Engineers and she took her job seriously. In 2003, she objected to a secret, no-bid contract guaranteeing Halliburton subsidiary, Kellogg Brown & Root, billions of dollars for services related to the invasion of Iraq. Unsatisfied with the response to questions she raised, she took her concerns to Congress in 2005. Thus began a long battle between Greenhouse and the Corps. She was demoted, her glowing job evaluations turned sour and she was sidelined.

Since my demotion I have experienced isolation; I continue to receive inappropriately down-graded performance reviews; my top secret clearance has been withdrawn; individuals have attempted to take credit for my work, no training opportunities have been identified since I have no Engineering and Construction mission responsibilities, and I have been prevented from returning to my contracting career field.

Greenhouse also talked about how painful it was to be excluded from the Hurricane Katrina clean-up effort. A Louisiana native, she said the program she would have run was handed over to unqualified staff.

But she carried on. In 2011, the US District Court in Washington D.C. approved a settlement between Greenhouse and the Corps of Engineers. She received $970,000 for lost wages, damages and attorney fees.

In 2005, a GAO report concluded that the Corps “properly awarded a sole-source contract for rebuilding Iraq’s oil infrastructure to the only contractor that was determined to be in a position to provide the services within the required time frame.“ But, scrutiny of the company continued. Five years later, in 2010, Politifact noted:

In 2015, KBR was ordered by the Justice Department to pay $100,000 fine for improperly accepting “gifts and gratuities, including expensive dinners, golf outings and event tickets from various sub-contractors while KBR was providing logistic services in Iraq.”

Greenhouse’s biggest concern, she tells Ferrer, “was taxpayers being fleeced…There was this centuries-old, good-old-boys network. It was all about — what can I do for you to get a contract.”

]]>https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/06/articles/uncategorized/cbs-features-military-procurement-whistleblower-bunny-greenhouse/feed/0For Federal Bureau of Investigation whistleblowers, recommended changes come slowlyhttps://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/04/articles/intelligence-community-whistleblowers/gao-on-fbi-whistleblower-program/
https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/04/articles/intelligence-community-whistleblowers/gao-on-fbi-whistleblower-program/#respondTue, 30 Apr 2019 13:13:32 +0000https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/?p=11868Four years after the Department of Justice (DOJ) agreed take steps to streamline the FBI whistleblower program, the agency has not taken action, according to a program review.

The Government Accountability Office issued recommendations in 2015 to make improvements like shortening the time it takes to process whistleblower complaints.

So far, the agency has not:

Clarified regulations

Given complainants timeframes for returning decisions

Developed an oversight mechanism to ensure compliance with requirements

Assessed the impact of efforts to reduce the duration of complaints or requirements

FBI file photo

In a May letter to the DOJ, National Whistleblower Center director John Kostyack urged the FBI to agency to adopt the GAO recommendations. “The law provides for FBI employees to make protected disclosures without retaliation; the practical reality must, as well,” he wrote.

According to an April 10 letter from the GAO to Attorney General William Barr, the agency wants the DOJ clarify guidance “to clearly convey to whom FBI employees can make protected disclosures.” The GAO also asked DOJ to let complainants know approximately how long it would take to process their cases.

They also recommended that DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Office of the Inspector General, Office of Attorney Recruitment and Management, and Office of the Deputy Attorney General “jointly assess the impact of ongoing and planned efforts to reduce the duration of FBI whistleblower retaliation complaints. This will ensure that these changes are in fact shortening total complaint length, without sacrificing quality.”

The GAO notes that in response to its 2015 report, Congress passed the FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. The law provides “a means for FBI employees to obtain corrective action for retaliation for disclosures of wrongdoing made to supervisors and others in the employees’ chain of command.” The FBI developed a training program that “clearly identifies to whom FBI employees may make protected disclosures., updated its policy directive and issued two fact sheets on whistleblower rights, according to the GAO. However, as of 2019, the DOJ’s regulations “have not been updated and are inconsistent with the current statute and FBI’s guidance and training,”

]]>https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/04/articles/intelligence-community-whistleblowers/gao-on-fbi-whistleblower-program/feed/0From cruise ships to tankers, big boats dump waste into the ocean. Whistleblowers can stop them.https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/04/articles/uncategorized/from-cruise-ships-to-oil-tankers-big-boats-dump-waste-into-the-ocean/
https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/04/articles/uncategorized/from-cruise-ships-to-oil-tankers-big-boats-dump-waste-into-the-ocean/#respondThu, 18 Apr 2019 09:00:12 +0000https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/?p=11780The New York Times was blunt in its series on crime at sea: “Few places on the planet are as lawless as the high seas, where egregious crimes are routinely committed with impunity.”

Whistleblowers are key to exposing those crimes, including illegal dumping from ships, according speakers at a Tuesday webinar broadcast from Washington. The panel looked at the role private citizens and whistleblowers play in the detecting off-shore crimes, including those that violate a law known as the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS).

“Enforcing, let alone detecting violations on the open ocean– with how vast it is — is just inherently difficult,” said Anton DeStefano, Lieutenant Commander of the U.S Coast Guard’s environmental law division. He noted that he was speaking for himself, not the agency.

Since many mariners who come forward face physical and professional hardships, the government needs rewards to incentivize their cooperation with whistleblower rewards, he said.

Since 2016, over 23 corporations were convicted and the U.S collected for than $70 million in penalties under the APPS, he said. More than 262 ships were put environmental compliance plans.

DeStefano noted that the whistleblower in this case reported his concerns initially in the United Kingdom. where there is no whistleblower reward system. The case was referred to U.S. authorities, where he was eligible for a reward.

“It’s a testament to the professionalism of these mariners,” he said.

The cruise line whistleblower was one of the ship’s engineers. That’s often the case, said Joseph Poux, the deputy chief of the environmental crimes section at the Department of Justice. He is also chair of INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group.

Poux said they still get discover wrongdoing during boat inspections, but most of their cases now come from whistleblowers. He said is often asked why they rely on whistleblowers.

“An engine room crew has six-to-eight people…A ship is a mobile factory. It disappears over the horizon and the only people that know what is happening and how they manage that waste are those people in the engine room,” he said.

Discharges happen at night and are hard to spot, Poux said. In addition, the illegal discharging schemes have become more sophisticated. They are often set up in way that they won’t be detected during a Coast Guard inspection.

“Without someone on the inside, without our knowing where to look, we wouldn’t be capturing these cases,” he said.

Shipping companies have complained that whistleblowers are out for reward money, not the environment, Poux said. As long as their information is credible, he said, “I don’t really care why a person is doing something. My concern is are they telling us the truth.”

In his 17 years on the job, he’s never had a whistleblower make up a story.

“They protect the environment and then get paid for it,” he said. “That’s what I do.”

Stephen M. Kohn, chair of the National Whistleblower Center, said that like crimes at seas, fraud is hard to detect. Laws governing those crimes offer lessons to those using the APPS laws.

“Money laundering –designed to be hidden — illegal bank accounts — designed to be hidden — bribery – no one does it in the pubic square,” he said.

Whistleblower rewards compensate crew members for the cost of blowing the whistle. They also inspire other whistleblowers to come forward, Kohn said. And, they fund groups that protect the environment. His staff reviewed 100 settlement agreements under the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships totalling $177 million. Of that, they calculated that $33 million went to whistleblowers. About $56 million from the fines went to “community service” payments, often to programs like the Florida National Keys Marine Sanctuary and the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund, a grant program administered by U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“If you sanction a pollution and use those sanctions for environmental purposes, this is the best you can get for the public interest,” Kohn said.

Danske Bank has been ordered to close its troubled Estonian branch before the end of 2019. Estonian regulators noted on February 19 that the bank violated anti-money laundering regulations for many years by allowing high-risk money-laundering clients to make suspicious transactions through the bank.

In addition, they stated that Danske Bank misled the Estonian public authorities by providing them with inadequate information and thus actually hampered their investigation, according to a statement from the Estonian Board of Financial Supervision.

In a related move, the European Union Banking Authority has opened a formal investigation “into a possible breach of Union law by the Estonian Financial Services Authority and the Danish Financial Services Authority in connection with money laundering activities linked to Danske Bank and its Estonian branch in particular.”

“This is a lesson to corporate banks. Danske Bank made a grave error when it forced Mr. Wilkinson to sign a restrictive non-disclosure agreement, instead of working with Mr. Wilkinson in trying to fix the problems,” according to a statement from Kohn.

“All of the banks responsible for this historic money-laundering scandal, not just the Dankse Bank, must be investigated by regulators and held fully accountable,” Kohn added.

Maíra Martini of Transparency International. “We expect for this investigation to confirm that both financial supervisors have failed to protect the European Union and, by extension, our interconnected world, from dirty money. The European Union will need to identify all at fault in order to learn from this bitter lesson.”

The group notes that while “both Estonia and Denmark received good marks on the Corruption Perceptions Index 2018, Transparency International has highlighted how countries with the cleanest public sectors have been enabling grand corruption around the world. These two countries, in particular, have become easy targets of individuals and companies behind the illicit US $230 billion funneled through Danske Bank.”

Nienke Palstra of Global Witnesson the EU move: “The sheer scale of the money laundering scandal at Danske Bank in Estonia has shaken Europe to its core. Today’s news is a positive step towards rebuilding trust in the EU’s ability to fight corruption, but we must seeDanish and Estonian authorities, Danske Bank, and senior bankers held to account to make sure this never happens again.”

]]>https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2019/02/articles/uncategorized/a-whistleblower-exposed-money-laundering-at-danske-banks-estonian-branch-now-the-government-is-shutting-it-down/feed/0SEC Protects Access to Whistleblower Rewardshttps://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/sec-protects-access-to-whistleblower-rewards/
https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/sec-protects-access-to-whistleblower-rewards/#respondMon, 23 Jan 2017 15:36:38 +0000https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/?p=11145On January 17, 2017, the SEC issued its latest sanction, a $340,000 penalty against BlackRock Inc., (NYSE: BLK — the world’s largest investment management firm) for interfering with the right of its employees to obtain whistleblower rewards under the SEC’s Dodd-Frank Act whistleblower reward program. SEC Rule 21F-17 was adopted in response to the whistleblower reward provisions found in the Dodd-Frank Act. Rule 21F-17 forbids a covered employer from taking “any action to impede an individual from communicating directly with the Commission staff about a possible securities law violation.”

The enforcement test case for a Rule 21F-17 enforcement action came in response to the February 19, 2014 complaint Kohn Kohn & Colapinto, LLP (KKC) filed against the giant government contracting firm KBR Inc. While litigating against KBR the firm documented an entrenched practice at KBR that forced all of its employees with knowledge of fraud to sign non-disclosure agreements that threaten them with termination if they chose to reveal fraud allegations to anyone outside of KBR’s legal department. The SEC took enforcement action on that complaint on April 1, 2015 and issued the first penalty against any company for attempting to silence a whistleblower. KBR was forced to pay a $130,000 penalty and agreed to cease this practice. The KBR enforcement action was widely applauded and served as the springboard for the series of related enforcement actions that followed.

In June 2016, an enforcement action was issued against Merrill Lynch for prohibiting its employees from disclosing confidential information “except pursuant to formal legal process or unless the former employee first obtained the written approval” from Merrill Lynch for the disclosure. In August 2016 the SEC, penalized Health Net Inc. $340,000 for including it its severance agreements a prohibition that prevented employees from being able to obtain a monetary reward under SEC’s whistleblower program. Blue Linx Holdings was also penalized $265,000 when the company had departing employees waive their right to recover a reward for any whistleblower complaints to be filed. In September 2016, the SEC hit Anheuser-Busch In Bev with a $6 million fine for engaging in misconduct under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act that included the unlawful attempt to impeded a whistleblower from reporting misconduct. In December 2017 SEC issued a $1.4 million penalty against SandRidge Energy Inc. for retaliating against a whistleblower who refused to sign an illegal confidentiality agreement and that same month issued a cease and desist order and fined NeuStar Inc. $180,000 for violating the risk alert issued to all advisers and brokers on October 24, 2016.

Well before KKC’s efforts to get the SEC to police the use of restrictive non-disclosure agreements, KKC successfully led the efforts to outlaw a similar practice that was occurring in the nuclear industry. In the late 1980’s nuclear whistleblowers were silenced with restrictive agreements that forbid the raising of safety concerns to government regulators, which was the norm of the industry in those days. KKC’s work in this area resulted in a nationwide ban on restrictive settlements in all federal nuclear and environmental cases, requiring government approval to ensure the right of employees to blow the whistle on safety and environmental issues was not compromised during the settlement process.

]]>https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/sec-protects-access-to-whistleblower-rewards/feed/0Swiss Bank Program Sees Final Resolutionshttps://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/swiss-bank-program-sees-final-resolutions/
https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/swiss-bank-program-sees-final-resolutions/#respondMon, 09 Jan 2017 20:42:30 +0000https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/?p=11169On December 29, 2016, the Justice Department announced that it had reached the final resolutions under the Swiss Bank Program. The Swiss Bank Program was put in place after a massive tax evasion scheme at Swiss bank UBS was exposed by Bradley Birkenfeld. The former international banker and wealth manager with UBS recently released Lucifer’s Banker: The Untold Story of How I Destroyed Swiss Bank Secrecy detailing his journey as he took on the Swiss banking industry.

Mr. Birkenfeld was the first international banker to blow the whistle on illegal offshore accounts held in Switzerland by U.S. Citizens. His exposures resulted in unprecedented recoveries for the U.S. taxpayers. The recoveries include $780 million dollars in civil fines and penalties paid by UBS bank, and over $5 billion dollars in collections from U.S. taxpayers who had illegally held “undeclared” offshore accounts in Switzerland and other countries.

In 2012, the IRS awarded Mr. Birkenfeld $104 million for his disclosures which revealed the secrets of the Swiss banking system. This historic award is the largest ever given to an individual whistleblower in the twenty-five-year history of federal qui tam or whistleblower reward laws. The award was obtained by Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto attorneys after three years of litigation before the IRS Whistleblower Office and recognized Mr. Birkenfeld’s numerous contributions to the public interest.

In a 2014 speech, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen explained the impact of Mr. Birkenfeld’s contributions reached much further than the 780 million dollar fine UBS received. Per Commissioner Koskinen, “Since 2009, these programs have resulted in more than 43,000 voluntary disclosures from individuals who paid more than $6 billon in back taxes, interest, and penalties, and the numbers continue to rise.”

“Offshore compliance remains an important area of tax administration,” said IRS Large Business & International Division (LB&I) Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell, regarding the final resolutions under the Swiss Bank Program. “We are evaluating incoming information to detect accountholders who have evaded reporting overseas assets and income, and we are using this information to further untangle the web of financial institutions and intermediaries helping with this evasion. We have expanded our investigations to other regions of the world, and we will continue to apply these techniques to help protect honest taxpayers.”

]]>https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/swiss-bank-program-sees-final-resolutions/feed/0Swiss Bank Program Sees Final Resolutionshttps://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/11130/
https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2017/01/articles/uncategorized/11130/#respondMon, 09 Jan 2017 15:04:22 +0000https://www.whistleblowersblog.org/?p=11130On December 29, 2016, the Justice Department announced that it had reached the final resolutions under the Swiss Bank Program. The Swiss Bank Program was put in place after a massive tax evasion scheme at Swiss bank UBS was exposed by Bradley Birkenfeld. The former international banker and wealth manager with UBS recently released Lucifer’s Banker: The Untold Story of How I Destroyed Swiss Bank Secrecy detailing his journey as he took on the Swiss banking industry.

Mr. Birkenfeld was the first international banker to blow the whistle on illegal offshore accounts held in Switzerland by U.S. Citizens. His exposures resulted in unprecedented recoveries for the U.S. taxpayers. The recoveries include $780 million dollars in civil fines and penalties paid by UBS bank, and over $5 billion dollars in collections from U.S. taxpayers who had illegally held “undeclared” offshore accounts in Switzerland and other countries.

In 2012, the IRS awarded Mr. Birkenfeld $104 million for his disclosures which revealed the secrets of the Swiss banking system. This historic award is the largest ever given to an individual whistleblower in the twenty-five-year history of federal qui tam or whistleblower reward laws. The award was obtained by Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto attorneys after three years of litigation before the IRS Whistleblower Office and recognized Mr. Birkenfeld’s numerous contributions to the public interest.

In a 2014 speech, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen explained the impact of Mr. Birkenfeld’s contributions reached much further than the 780 million dollar fine UBS received. Per Commissioner Koskinen, “Since 2009, these programs have resulted in more than 43,000 voluntary disclosures from individuals who paid more than $6 billon in back taxes, interest, and penalties, and the numbers continue to rise.”

“Offshore compliance remains an important area of tax administration,” said IRS Large Business & International Division (LB&I) Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell, regarding the final resolutions under the Swiss Bank Program. “We are evaluating incoming information to detect accountholders who have evaded reporting overseas assets and income, and we are using this information to further untangle the web of financial institutions and intermediaries helping with this evasion. We have expanded our investigations to other regions of the world, and we will continue to apply these techniques to help protect honest taxpayers.”